In past years, students could carry their phones with them, however they had to be turned off.
MORE: Southeastern bans student cell phones during school day
“All schools should ban them! If there is an emergency.. the office has phones. They can do what we did, “back in the day,” use the office phone. And parents can do the same,” Rhonda Jo Gram said. “These cell phones everywhere are ridiculous.”
However, Barry Barfield Mba directly disagreed with Jo Gram.
“I really can’t stand to see old people say they don’t need phones in school. Maybe when you all were in school they were not needed, but in this new school era they are needed,” Barfield Mba said. “We must stop trying to use old school thought processes to fix/solve new school issues.”
A number of teachers chimed in to discuss the difficultly of teaching at the high school level with cell phones in the classroom.
“There would be no problem if every student obeyed the rules and kept their phones out of sight.. after teaching for 26 years and dealing with the issues these phones are now causing, I can tell you they don’t,” Laura Madden said. “Not even the, ‘good’ kids. They believe they can’t survive without them and are constantly using them for anything but school work.”
Madden said in her experience students often try to hide cell phones under their desk, in their hoodies or bookbags, making it harder for them to concentrate on their school work.
“It is part of the reason they can’t learn as easily at school,” Madden said.
MORE: Clark County schools work to keep students safe in the classroom
One of the biggest concerns parents appear to have about the policy is that students would be unable to contact their parents, or police, in the event of an emergency.
“When a emergency happens, the last thing we need are kids in chaos on their phones, instead of listening and trying to get to safety,” Madden said.
Southeastern Local School’s Superintendent David Shea said previously all Southeastern students have their school issued computers with them throughout the school day, and parents are welcome to email their child if they need to speak with them.
“But we prefer they call the office so we can keep up with what’s going on if a student needs additional need,” Shea said.
Students will also still be allowed to use their phones before and after the school day, Shea said.
“We don’t want students to not bring their phones to school,” Shea said. “They can use them after school —we know that many of them have practice and stuff going on after school and have to get into contact with their parents. They just don’t need them in the classroom.”
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